


MacGyver Febuwhump 2021

by saintsurvivor



Series: Tumblr + Whump + MacGyver + Drabbles [3]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016) Whump, Assault, Bathing/Washing, Blood and Injury, Broken Bones, Buried Alive, Caretaking, Coma, Episode Tag, Episode: s01e06 Wrench, Episode: s01e20 Hole Puncher, FebuWhump2021, Found Family, Gen, Guilt, Gun Violence, Hurt Angus Macgyver (Macgyver 2016), Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, Impaling, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Insomnia, Jack Dalton (MacGyver TV 2016) Whump, Kidnapping, Medical Trauma, Mild Suicidal Ideation, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Passing Out, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prisoner of War, Protective Charlie Robinson, Protective Jack Dalton (MacGyver 2016), Survivor Guilt, Torture, Waterboarding, army days
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-15 18:42:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 13,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29318823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saintsurvivor/pseuds/saintsurvivor
Summary: For the first time since Jack first moved in, his apartment is empty, and it’s an awful, hollowing feeling.
Relationships: Angus MacGyver & Charlie Robinson (MacGyver TV 2016), Jack Dalton & Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016), Riley Davis & Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016)
Series: Tumblr + Whump + MacGyver + Drabbles [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2119845
Comments: 91
Kudos: 78





	1. Mac + Truth Serum

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gretti_writes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gretti_writes/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _5-ethyl-5-isoamylbarbituric acid_ , or, more colloquially known as, a type of truth serum, despite it having been shown that most people it was used upon can be manipulated into giving a false memory. This isn’t Mac’s first rodeo, not with _Amobarbital_ or _Trapanal_.
> 
> DAY 1 ALT - truth serum

He comes too with a strangled breath, chest heaving, throat dry and heart pounding in his temples and ears. Mac shudders in the cold of the room, stripped of anything that could indicate where he was, or who had took him, because someone _had_ took him, had awoken him in his own bed after three long, back to back missions. Had placed a hand and what must have been a chloroformed cloth over his mouth. He hadn’t even had chance to scream, not even to fight. 

He can only hope that it doesn’t take the full three days Matty had so generously given him, Riley and Desi off since they’d been running ragged for weeks, and Mac had only really just recovered from his six fractured ribs and Desi from her sprained wrist, to realize that he’d been taken. But Riley and Desi had been talking about a girls trip and Bozer had been burning the candles for a few days to get the backlog of prosthesis rushed out, and Charlie was only supposed to be coming up starting next week and not this one, so he doesn’t really think he could hold out hope for this oldest friend either.

He groans quietly, shifts in the chair he’s sat in. He’s been out for a few hours, he thinks, can feel it in the numbness of his backside. That could just be how he’s sat, though.

The chair is uncomfortable. Uniform metal, sleek gray, even the duct tape that keeps his hands, wrists and ankles on the legs and arms of the chair is grey. Everything seems to have just been awashed in gray, and what isn’t, is carmine, scarlet splashed around the grey room. 

He thinks it’s his, he can taste old pennies and copper, can feel it slowly dripping down the side of his face, into his lap, thinks they must have beat him when he was unconscious. His eyes flutter, and his head just feels so _heavy_ , tipping to one side and his ringing left ear pressing against his shoulder, the inside of his ear feels like it’s _itching_ , and he can’t scratch it, like there’s a bee slowly buzzing inside of it.

He tries again, tries to lift his head or even just _move_ something, Mac can only feel how each muscle - screaming, tearing, so _sore_ \- tense, rippling beneath his skin as he tries to move. Beneath the several layers of duct tape, each finger is individually taped and then taped together, forming a strange mitten that goes almost to his mid forearm, his fingers try to move, his feet move reflexively, but even then, despite his ankles only having been taped to the leg of it, still can’t move, not properly. He’s cold too, can feel the metal of the chair biting into his legs, his arms, his back. They’ve left his boxers on, thankfully. Small mercies, Mac thinks drearily.

Some _bangs_ , heavy and threatening, just behind him and he tries to move his head again, tries to tip it back, but it only pounds further, makes Mac’s stomach turn, threatening to make a reappearance even though he hasn’t ate anything for the last two days, since it had been limited rations. He gags quietly, tries to swallow it down, feels how trying to breathe through it just makes his barely healed ribs sore and tense.

He _hates_ rib injuries.

“Ah, Baby Mac,” A familiar voice says from behind. Mac gives a muffled whimper when a large hand grabs his hair, tight enough to hurt. Blunt finger nails scrape across his scalp and his head is pulled back, too quickly, too harshly, and he can’t help the yelp that escapes, his neck _screaming_ at him, shoulders tensing. His head pounds, and blood drips into his eyes, blinding him. “Thought we’d hit you too hard that last go around, good to see those baby blues are still blinkin’ for me.”

Jonah Walsh is a smear of too big muscles and a too familiar expression as he lets Mac’s head go, pushing it harshly so Mac’s chin bounces up and off his chest again, jostling his clavicle - bruised, as he can now feel. He grabs a chair, metal and grey, just like the one Mac’s sat on, and he lets it _screech_ against the concrete floor. Mac blinks, a reflexive flinch, and Walsh laughs, as he sits down in front of Mac, elbows on his knees, hands clasped together.

He’s smiling, eyes narrow and dark. There’s a bulge of a gun at his left hip but Mac finds his eyes fixated on the swollen and bruised knuckles, bloodied, oceanic blue and merlot red. His body throbs, aches, screams for relief. He thinks the bruises on Mac’s body would match those bruises on Jonah Walshes’ fists, wonders how many times he’s woke up, based on what Walsh had said.

“Now, I’m sure you gotta be wondering why you’re here, since I’m pretty that big brain of yours is empty of anything but blood right now,” Walsh says, and he sounds so _pleasant_ , so _familiar_ , as if he really is the uncle figure he tried to sell himself as all those years ago, when Mac had first met him. A heavy hand on his left wrist, lying over the duct tape jolts him from his slowly meandering thoughts, thick fingers digging in, enough to hurt even through the layers of duct tape. “I’m sure a smart kid like you’ll know all about this little beauty, kinda surprised Jimmy didn’t use it on you, tough I suppose he’s always had the better set of morals between him and I-”

That heavy hand crawls up Mac’s forearm, keeps those blunt fingernails pressed against the sensitive, bloodied skin. A sharp sting, bringing his attention to the butterfly needle in his arm, a slow drip that feels familiar now that he can actually feel it, and Mac _moves_. Yanks at his wrists, his ankles, tries to get that heavy hand _off_ him, but he can’t, he can’t, every time his head moves, his eyes blink and he’s gone, he’s blind, dizzy, sick, he can barely _breathe_ -

A lazy backhand, still heavy and hurtful, against his face, and his head whips to the side, ears ringing, eyes dizzy. His stomach turns and he only just barely manages to swallow the bile.

“Hush up, Baby Mac,” Walsh tells him, hulking as he stands in front of Mac, the slow release drip stand with a bag of _normal saline_ just on the left something that Mac hadn’t even noticed. “Can’t have you panicking before the _Amobarbital_ kicks in.” He winks, laughs, like it’s a _game_.

Mac starts, dreary eyes drifting from Walsh to the drip stand and back, feeling a slow lace of panic starting to kick in, he doesn’t know how long he’s been under, how long it’s been since that drip, since the _Amobarbital_ has been slowly working it’s way through his system

 _5-ethyl-5-isoamylbarbituric acid,_ or, more colloquially known as, a type of truth serum, despite it having been shown that most people it was used upon can be manipulated into giving a false memory. This isn’t Mac’s first rodeo, not with _Amobarbital_ or _Trapanal,_ but that doesn’t matter, especially not when he thinks he knows what Walsh wants.

Walsh moves closer, still just as threatening, still just as intimidating. Mac can’t seem to look away from the heavy bruising on his knuckles, the blood splattered casually up his bare forearms. That hand grasps his hair again, forces his head up, he can see the malice glistening in those narrow eyes, the determination for the answers Walsh wants. Walsh is not a man easily refused.

“Now,” Walsh says, face close to Mac’s, the hand in his hair tightening, scraping across his scalp. Mac tries to keep in his yelp, but Walsh is an extraordinarily strong man. “A little birdie told me that you’ve figured the way to make KX-7 viable and have fixed the mistakes your fool dad and I made. And you?”

Walsh shakes Mac’s head viciously, his eyes blurring, swallowing down the blood that his split lip is still leaking. 

“ _You_ , Baby Mac, are gonna tell me _everything_.” His smile, wide and far too many teeth to be polite, says that he’s not going to be refused.


	2. Mac + Jack + Loss of Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They’ve been here, by Jack’s reckon, for about two weeks now, and all Jack has to show for it is a hatred of wet rooms, of Mac not being directly in his eyesight and an overwhelmingly powerful urge to put Murdoc six feet under whilst he’s still breathing.
> 
> DAY 2 - "I can't do this anymore"

“Hey! Hey, jackass, look at me _goddamnit!”_ Jack’s voice breaks half way through, but it’s still enough for Murdoc to turn, to twist so he’s facing away from Mac, and that’s enough to have Jack sighing in relief, even if he still fights, carries on pulling at the hand cuffs that’s keeping him leashed to the heavy pipe, even if it makes the collar, heavy and metal, tug at his throat. “C’mon man, why don’t you pick on someone your own size, huh? Too scared of gettin’ your ass beat?”

Murdoc laughs, even as he drops his hand away from where it had been pressing slowly against Mac’s broken collarbone, had been digging his thumb into the splinter of the bone that Jack can see, even from where he is in the corner, with Mac having been dragged from Jack’s very arms to the middle of the wet room, over the drain. 

“Jack, Jack, _Jack_ ,” Murdoc tuts, and he twists enough that his back is to Mac, a deliberate thing, an insult, as if he knows Mac can’t escape, as if he hasn’t battered the kid near death enough as it is. His steps are barely audible as he crosses over the tiled floor, when he crouches in front of Jack, deliberately nudging Jack’s feet out of the way, as if Jack’s an _inconvenience. “_ Is someone getting _jealous_ over here, big guy? Is someone spending a little too much time with your dear little pup?”

Jack snarls, doesn’t even flinch as he lunges forward, even though it pulls at his shoulders. Murdoc _laughs_ , doesn’t even have the politeness to scramble out of the way. Jack might as well be a leashed dachsund, declawed and defanged, for all Murdoc cares about right now. No, no his sights are set on a more worthy target apparently. 

His sights are set on Mac, on tired, bloodied Mac, whose tried so hard to keep those screams in, but they’ve been here, by Jack’s reckon, for about two weeks now, and all Jack has to show for it is a hatred of wet rooms, of Mac not being directly in his eyesight and an overwhelmingly powerful urge to put Murdoc six feet under whilst he’s still breathing. The only injury he's encured is when Murdoc gets mad at his mouthing off and decides Jack needs to be put in his place.

“You’re going to shoot your blood pressure through the roof there, Jackie,” Murdoc says, and he stands easily, despite the way he keeps out of careful reach from Jack’s gritted teeth. Murdoc had called him animal, savage, _feral,_ when Jack had first bit him, as if Murdoc isn't the animal for torturing a defenseless and innocent man. As if Murdoc isn't the one crooning all those awful threats of what he's going to do into Macs ear. "Now, I'd be a little quieter if I were you, if you don't want to see how _loud_ I can _really_ make Angus scream."

By Jacks count, it takes sixteen and a half steps to reach the middle of the room, to reach _Mac_ , and every one of those steps is a knife in Jacks chest, a twist of his heart as it brings a mad man over to his kid, to his partner. Mac moans weakly when Murdoc cups his chin, tugs his head up. Jack moans in reply, in grief, as if he himself is hurt when he sees the carefully carved cuts against Mac's eyes, blue and electric and swollen with bruises, how his mouth is mushy and bloodied too, too many hits to the mouth when he himself started getting as bratty as he could. Murdoc has played them off against one another so well, and all it did was get Mac more hurt.

"Papa Bear’s _really_ getting agitated over there, dear Angus, I'm not quite sure if it's because I'm doing this to you or if _he_ wants to do it himself," Murdoc laughs, gives a calculated backhand to the bruised slope of Mac's ribs, right where he'd already shoved a cattle prod, over and over, follows it up with a neat right hook to the corresponding hip, just to hear how Mac moans, shuddering in the open air. “I mean, wasn’t he just _so_ angry when you came back from Nigeria, and _my_! You didn’t even stay for him, for your dear old Papa Bear, did you? Oh no, it was for _me_. To hunt _me_ down, truly Angus, i’m flattered, I didn’t think I’d made such an impression on you.”

Mac wheezes out a breathe, and Jack can _see_ that it hurts to do so, just as it hurts to raise his head, even as he does so, his splintered collarbone distorting beneath his skin, rippling the collar of heavy bruises around his throat awfully. Jack wants nothing more than to swap places, for it to be Mac here, and him to be the one under Murdoc’s administrations, but he _can’t_ , because Murdoc is just obsessed, had picked them up after Jill’s funeral, hadn’t even let her be laid to rest in peace. He’d had to wreck even that.

“F- _fuck you, asshole_.” It seems to take every _scrap_ of resolve, of strength that Mac has to even say that, swaying on the chains that are the only thing keeping him up, feet a few inches from the tiled floor. Blood drips from his bare feet, and it’s a strange thing to be focused on, between the splintered clavicle, the bruised, crackled ribs, the unnumbered and untold amount of bruises, the _dislocated knee_ , it’s the blood dripping from Mac’s foot, the arch of his delicate feet that has Jack fixated, has him wishing he’d shot Murdoc all those months ago.

Murdoc sighs, patting Mac on the cheek, smearing the blood further against his face. He seems to enjoy Mac flinching, blinking away from him, as if the very thought that he’s scared the strongest man Jack has ever known apart from his Pops is something to be _proud_ of. 

“I can see we’re not getting anxywhere today,” Murdoc says, disappointed, even as he slips his hand down from Mac’s jaw, pressing deliberately into the mushy swollen bruises there, laughing delightedly when Mac whines, high pitched and desperate, trying to get away, but the chains only swing him further into Murdoc’s touch, has that whine quietening into a whimper, a heartbreaking thing that Jack can still here when it’s gone, has him thinking of empty beds, insomnia, Mac shaking apart in his arms after a panic attack because of a night terror. “Jackie really is making an annoyance of himself today, for shame. If you wanted to torture the dear boy scout, you could at least have done the dirty work yourself.”

With a parting backhand, heavy and hurting, whipping Mac’s head to the left, just enough that he can see what Murdoc is doing, untangling the chain from the hook, and with a hoarse yelp and heavy panting, Mac is released, smacking into the tiled floor, wet with blood and tears, naked skin becoming further bloodied, with a sickening and dull _thud_.

Poor kid doesn’t even have a moment to himself, because then Murdoc has a hand in his too long hair, matted with blood and geasy with sweat and tears, twisting it enough that Jack can _see_ the tears in Mac’s eyes, how they trail down his bruised and cut cheeks as Murdoc _drags_ him across the tiled floor.

Mac yelps, panting heavily, can’t even get his arms up with his dislocated shoulder, and how they’re duct taped and chained together. For once, just for _once_ , Jack wishes Murdoc was taking pity on them, was going to let Mac and Jack sit near one another, but no, no, he’s dragging Mac away from him, a further sixteen and a half steps, Mac whimpering, struggling as best he can all the way.

“Be a good boy scout and _stay_ , hmm?” Murdoc tells him, aims a heavy kick to Mac’s abdomen, as if he hasn’t tortured the kid enough. It takes sixteen and a half steps for Murdoc to leave, whistling quietly beneath his breathe. 

The heavy door _slams_ shut, and the only sound then after, is Mac and Jack’s ragged breathing, a whimper when Mac tries to turn over, first onto his bad shoulder and then onto his back.

“Mac?” Jack says quietly, he can hear the noise on every exhale, a harsh whistling note, and he can see the rippling of Mac’s back through the bruises, the whip marks barely healed. Poor kids a fucking _ruin_.

“Hey, Mackie, c’mon, look at me hoss, show me you’re still kickin’.” Jack says, urgent, needs to know that Mac is okay, or as okay as he can be. Instead, Mac lets out a groan, thin and hurting, and Jack watches with wide eyes as Mac stumbles, tries to get his bum knee straight even as he gets his good knee under him, uses his bruised elbows to get him up. 

It looks agonizing, his face scrunched up, but he seems so determined, whining and moaning on every movement, as if he’s tried so hard to keep his pained noises down that they’re now just bubbling up, now that it’s just him and Jack. Another noise, another movement, eight steps that seem to take hours, and Jack knows what he’s doing now, why he’s shuffling weirdly, why he’s scooting forward on his good knee and using his elbows to drag him along, teeth gritted, eyes narrow, blinking away the blood and the too long tresses of his hair.

“Hey hey, hoss, no, c’mon, you’re gonna havta to save your strength,” Jack hisses, fights against the cuffs and tape again, hears how his breath wheezes out when the collar pulls, strangles him, leaves his chest heaving and his head pounding. “Ain’t doin’ yourself any favours, kiddo.”

Even with Mac’s pained noises, the way he pants heavily, the way his dislocated knee bulges at the seams of his flesh, as if it’s trying to escape, a further ten steps, Jack can’t help the relief that he’s feeling, that Mac is gonna be near him, is gonna be close enough to touch, to feel the heat off, because even though he can’t wrap the kid in his arms like he’s longing to, he can lean against him, can cradle him in his body, and he just needs to be _close_.

A further eight steps, only six left, each step, each scoot marked by an agonized face, a hurting noise that tears the heart straight out of Jack’s chest. But _God_ , when Mac is there, when Mac is in reach, just touching at the ankle of Jack’s leg, using his suit pants to help haul himself close, between the splay of Jack’s legs, pressing his chest against Jack’s abdomen, curling between his legs, splintered clavicle distorted beneath his skin and even worse up close.

“Oh kiddo,” Jack says lowly, can feel the shallow wheeze of Mac’s chest, the grate of broken ribs against his. His collar has enough slack that he can dip his head, press a dry mouthed kiss to the crown of Mac’s head, even if it does smell of blood and sweat and fear. “I wish I could stop this, Mac, I really do.”

Mac shudders, curls up as much as his ribs allow. His skin is chilled, tacky with sweat and blood against Jack’s torn shirt, and he wishes he could give Mac his clothes, could cover him more than the black boxers Murdoc had shoved him in does.

“I wanna go home, Jack,” Mac confesses, and his voice breaks half way through, on the verge of tears like he never is when it’s not just them. “I don’t-I can’t this anymore, Jack, I _can’t_ -”

“ _Hey_ ,” Jack growls, pulls his head up enough so that Mac can look up at him, shaking, so fucking young to be in this much pain. “We’re gonna get home, hoss, don’t you fuckin’ doubt that. The team is gonna be lookin’ for us, and you know what? You’re fuckin’ _strong_ , kid, don’t you give up on me now, don’t you be sayin’ that you’re gonna leave me, not when I’ve still got breathe in my lungs and that big brain a’ yours is still spinning ‘round like a tilt-a-whirl, we’re gonna get outta this, Mac, I know we are.”

Mac’s head droops, and he stays silent long enough that Jack panics, barks out his name, but then his head is coming up, eyes wet and glassy, bloodied but he looks up at Jack with a wrecked smile, teeth bloodied against the back drop of the oceanic blue and merlot red bruises.

“Yeah,” He whispers. “Yeah, we got this.”

“We got this.” Jack repeats, as if to make himself believe it too.


	3. Mac + Jack + Coma + Caretaking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the three damn months that Jack had been sulking and James MacGyver had been skulking around Phoenix, Mac had been tortured, tortured so extensively that he's been in a coma since they finally found him, and might never be able to breathe on his own again because of repeated strangulation and waterboarding, just because he'd been unlucky enough to be born James MacGyver's son.
> 
> DAY 3 ALT - Coma

"Hey, kiddo," Jack says as he closes the hospital room door softly. He walks over, eyes catching on the calender just by the hospital bed. 24th of December. _Christmas Eve._ "Heard you didn't have too hot a night last night."

Mac doesn't say anything, like he hasn't the past few months. He's still asleep, Jack thinks, knocked out from the dose of Lorazepam the nurse had given him during the night when pain had him trying to get up, had his breathing all fucked up, and his secretions coming up like a damn water fountain. It had only been a small dose, about 1ml, but Mac's always been funny with painkillers and relaxants, Lorazepam is thankfully one of the ones that do their job right, relaxing him, and Jack had a feeling that if it weren't for the fact that Mac hadn't opened those peepers of his for going on three weeks now, he'd be groggy and tired as all hell, just like he used to be when the VA councilor prescribed them both sleeping tablets.

Jack sighs, watching as Mac lies there, on the hospital bed, he's been tilted on his side, ready for his morning bedwash that Jack had asked them to leave for him. Sometimes, when he comes, he still can't believe that Mac is here, back with them. He'd been missing for so long, three months and two days, and Jack can't help the guilty pit in his stomach that opens up, because whilst he was mad about Mac leaving, about Mac apparently abandoning him, that he'd never thought to really look for Mac, and that his leaving for Nigeria had been a carefully crafted ruse by an old enemy of James, who'd learnt of Macs whereabouts through Jonah Walsh. 

For the three damn months that Jack had been sulking and James MacGyver had been skulking around Phoenix, Mac had been tortured, tortured so extensively that he's been in a coma since they finally found him, and might never be able to breathe on his own again because of repeated strangulation and waterboarding, just because he'd been unlucky enough to be born James MacGyver's son.

The slow beep of Mac’s heart monitor and the slow sounds of his humidified oxygen attached to his tracheostomy is a by now familiar back drop of sounds, and it's easy enough to find everything, the cardboard bowl he fills with lukewarm water, the flannels Bozer had brought over, the comfortable joggers and low necked jumper that Jack was pretty sure Riley had pilfered from Jack's own wardrobe, even the shampoo and citrus scented body wash Mac preferred that Matty had acquired.

"Get you washed, huh, kiddo?" Jack asks. Mac’s humidified oxygen wheezes in response. "Gotta make sure sure you ain't smellin' up Phoenix Medical, you've got your favourite nurse on today, god knows he's been flirtin' something with you since you got here."

It's easy enough to disengage the railings, padded for Macs comfort, even easier to loop a hand over Mac's shoulder and hip, supporting his thigh, careful not to jostle his shoulder because apparently the amount of times they'd dislocated it has made it far more easier to pop out its socket, and to avoid the long ribbon of stitches hiding on Mac's hip down to his thigh to where his femoral artery would be. 

"How bout a little music, huh? If _this_ don't get you stirrin' in your grave, then nothing else will." Music blares through the portable Bluetooth speakers on Mac’s bedside, _Guns and Roses_ and the song Jack and Mac would always scream out at karaoke, _Sweet Child O' Mine_. Jack laughs, and if it sounds a little damp, well, Mac's not going to tell anyone.

Mac is light, too light, skin and bones, skin stretched tight over his skeleton and he's extraordinarily pale, enough that he almost glows. Gets Mac on his back, trying to ignore the way every vertebrae is visible, every rib a graveyard of healing bruises and too tight skin.

"Up and at 'em, kiddo," Jack says brightly, and he slowly, carefully, folds Mac's right arm, lacing it out of the thick scarlet jumper he thinks might have actually been Jack's Pops. "Atta boy and your other one, theeeere we go, you're almost old enough to dress yourself, now! Don't be expectin' me to do this when you open those peepers a' yours though." 

Just as carefully, just as gently, folding the left arm, letting Mac rest against the pillow again as Jack carefully twists off the oxygen to carefully tip the sweater over Mac’s head, reconnects it, easy as pie. This is a long familiar routine.

Wrings out the flannel, carefully, gently strokes it down Macs face, thinks he's going to need to wash Mac's hair later on, it's long, needing a trim, it's almost to Mac’s shoulders now, and the kid looks a out all of sixteen. Even when the flannel dips down to his throat, to his armpits as Jack gently lifts each arm, popping Mac on the nose with his own hand, pretending to steal his nose, Mac still doesn't flinch.

Careful around the bruised and broken ribs, skirts around Mac’s PEG site just in the middle of his belly. Mac has his Nutritison Energy feed over night, from 8pm to 10am, an easy routine and Jack's been trained on everything for Mac's care, from hooking up his feed, changing his catheter, to doing a fully tracheostomy change by himself. There's nothing Jack wouldn't do for Angus MacGyver.

This? This is just a new way to acknowledge it.

After, whistling gently to the tune, when he's sat Mac up, resting his limp upper half against Jack's chest, and he's wiped down Macs back, careful of the long healed whipping scars from years and an age ago, it's easy enough wrestle Mac into his new sweater, thick and comfortable, one of Jack's and maybe he's hoping the familiar scent will let Mac realize that he's safe, that he's home. 

He gets his arms beneath Macs thighs, careful of the catheter lacing up the kids leg, shimmies the too in joggers down the too thin hips, the too thin legs, carefully untangles Mac's feet one by one out of them, wrings the flannel. It's just as gentle, especially around the stitches, the dislocated knee that's just like his shoulder. Cleans and dries Macs groin quickly and easily, they've never been much for embarrassment really, not with one another, and this is his kid, who Jack would do anything for. _Has_ done anything for.

It's just as easy, helping those limp feet one by one into the joggers, skimming them up Mscs thighs, onto his hips. After, he laces an arm under Macs throat, and the other under his knees, cradles him close, settling him easily into a big recliner chair that Matty had requisitioned from physiotherapy. 

Mac settles in there so easily, lost in the too big chair, thats okay though. Jack's got the collection of Bruce Willis movies to get get again, and after he's changed his kids sheets for new ones, they'll settle in that chair together and watch Bruce do what he does best. 

Together, like always.

"I miss you, kid," Jack will say after, Mac's head limp and heavy on his shoulder, cradled protectively in the bulk of his body. Nobody will hurt Mac, not whilst Jack's here. "Come back back me soon, yeah?"

Mac's heart monitor beeps in response. Jack smiles, presses a kids to Mac's forehead.

"All i could ask for, Mac."


	4. Mac + Charlie + Metal Pole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Cha-Charlie?" He asks, feels the way his head pounds, his chest hurts, everything hurts, grasps a hand around Charlies forearm. His eyes flutter.
> 
> DAY 4 IMPALING

Something's wrong.

Something is so wrong, Mac can feel it. He doesn't know why or even _what_ is wrong, only that bile is rising in his throat, his fingers twitch from where they're clutching something at his stomach. At first, he thinks it's because his ears are still ringing from the bomb, the way his ribs ache from how the explosion had thrown him into the car that he and Charlie had tried to hide behind. His head certainly seems to think it was. Across from him, Charlie himself looks a little shaken, wide eyed, mouth open.

He's reaching towards Mac, his mouth is moving but Mac can't hear anything, can only see the movement of his mouth, the tense of his muscles, how the destroyed car and dumpster is burning, sickly and making him think of Afghanistan, downrange in the sand and the heat, Charlie by his side and then Jack-

"-ac! _Mac_!" His hearing filters in and out, and he coughs, wrenching something deep inside, twisting something around, something tickles his throat, feels like bile, burns like it too actually, but when he coughs, when he hacks it up into his elbow, its scarlet and fresh, ugly against the blue of his shirt, some of it staining the olive drab of the bomb disposal suit. His eyes widen, darting from the blood to Charlie, wide, panicky, and Charlie's mouth moves faster, his hands, big and bloody already, move, fast enough that Mac blinks, thinks he lost a couple of minutes there. His eyes dart back down.

Hands grab beneath his elbows as Mac goes stares at that blood splatter, he can taste it now, old pennies, copper, slick on his tongue, head pounding. 

"Oh." He mutters, sways forward, Charlie is the only thing holding him up now, the only think stopping him from collapsing onto the asphalt. He thinks he can hear yelling again, but it's dazed, far away, distorted. His vision sways and he tilts, legs gone from beneath him.

He can hear his heart beat in his ears, suddenly, oh so suddenly, something erupts in his belly. A burning brand, spiralling out from his belly to his chest, his throat on fire too, blood and bile.

"S-so-sorry, 'Lie," He gurgles, when he throws up again, thin and fresh blood all over the front of Charlie's sweat top. He can't coordinate his hands enough to try and clean it up. "Le-lemme-"

His knees disappear, he can't feel his legs, he's airborne, holding onto Charlie for safety, he feels a little like he's going to fly away, his only anchor his best friend, safe and sturdy. He clutches at Charlie's biceps, suddenly cold, shivering. Burrows into Charlie's chest, he's so _warm_.

"Hey, look at me Mackie, lemme see those beautiful eyes," Charlie's talking, talking at him Mac thinks, and it's an effort to scramble his brain and thoughts together. Nothing makes sense, only that Charlie is here and so Max is safe. But why does he _hurt_ so much, then? "That's it, there we go, you're gonna be just fine, just keep that breathin' steady for me."

A hand leaves his elbow and Mac feels a drift, hiccups painfully as he clutches tighter at Charlies sweatshirt, every time he tries to move, something pulls sickly in his stomach, just by his left side. He screams though, when something does touch that side, tries to twist away from the heavy hand Charlie is pressing against his side, but he can't, he _can't, Charlie please, no, stop-_

Charlies voice is ragged, tear wet and trembling when he apologises, pressing further down on whatever it is he's doing. 

"I'm sorry, Mac, God I'm so fucking sorry," Mac hiccups at the apologises, tries to curl further into Charlies chest. Vaguely, dizzily, he can hear someone calling for an ambulance. "C'mon man, lets get you laid down, huh, lets get you comfy-"

Then asphalt is beneath him, and Charlie's hands have left him, his arms are gone and Mac makes a noise in the back of his throat, an arm flopping out, reaching for _Charlie, where's Charlie, please, I don't wanna be alone-_

"You ain't alone, Mackie, I promise, I'm right here," Charlie says, and he sounds so desperate, he needs help, Mac thinks. Tries to get up on elbows succeeds with one but then Charlie's big hands, damp with something presses against his other shoulder. "Stay down Mac, yeah? Ambulance is almost here, you're gonna be just fine, gonna fix you up just like new."

Charlie isn't quick enough to stop how Mac catches sight of the large metal pole, two inches in diameter, stuck fast in Macs gut, blood dripping out of the hollow end.

"Cha-Charlie?" He asks, feels the way his head pounds, his chest hurts, everything hurts, grasps a hand around Charlies forearm. His eyes flutter.

 _"_ Hey, hey, no, stay with me kid, don't you dare close those eyes, Mackie, you fucking stay awake for me-!"

"So-ss-sorry, Charlie."


	5. Mac + Charlie + Metal Pole + Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mac had been hurt because Charlie had asked from him to come up to NYC and though Jack had been adamant that Charlie wasn't at fault Charlie couldn't help but feel like it was.  
> The aftermath of DAY 4 IMPALING
> 
> DAY 5 ALT PLEASE COME BACK

The slow beep of the heart monitor is the only thing Charlie can really concentrate on.

It's a slow and steady pulse, a backdrop of noise that Charlie has become so used to that he finds his own heartbeat slowing from it's panicky drum beat to match with Macs. He sighs, ducks his heads, elbows on knees and he scrubs a hand roughly over his face. 

Mac is just as still and silent as when he arrived, but at least he's not covered in blood still, impaled sickeningly on a piece of rebar that had lodged itself into Macs belly from the derelict dumpster that Mac had used to try and dampen the effects of The Ghosts bomb. Here, he's at least in a bed, no longer impaled, no longer a shivering mess that Charlie had barely been able to hold together, between his own tears, his own fear, seeing Mac slipping away, the pale of his cheeks, the vivid scarlet of the blood on his mouth, on his teeth.

This isn't the first time Charlie's saw Mac injured, not even really the first time Charlie has had Mac’s blood on his hands, had to his partner from bleeding out. This time just seems to hurt so much more, seems to hit harder than it ever had before. Maybe it's because, despite knowing what Mac actually does that it's probably just as dangerous as what they did downrange, Charlie has never really thought about what Mac's government agent job means, just what it really entails.

That, and because Mac had been hurt on _Charlies_ watch. Had begged for Charlie not to leave, even though Charlie hasn't even been an inch away, and that had-

That had rattled him, had rattled him far more than Charlie wanted to admit, but he's always beneath like that with Mac. Mac has a tendency to crawl his way inside your heart and keep himself there, even if the man can't see just how precious and loved he is. 

Charlie sighs, scrubs a hand over his face, over his hair, uses the other one to grasp at Mac's limp hand, careful of the cannula there, connected to a blood bag. His second transfusion. His other hand, just as limp, just as pale, resting in his belly just over the injury is connected to a IV bag of fluids. Surgery had been about eight hours, washing out his organs, stitching everything up, making sure nothing was out of place. Charlie hadn't moved from Macs side since he returned from recovery, he knows Jack and the others are on their way, but they've taken it personally, just as Charlie had.

Patricia Thornton at first had been reluctant to believe that it was The Ghost, but it didn't matter, not when Charlie had been grief stricken, blood on his hands, his shirt, his face. Jack had seen the look on his face, in his eyes. Mac had been hurt because Charlie had asked from him to come up to NYC and though Jack had been adamant that Charlie wasn't at fault, Charlie couldn't help but feel like it was.

Mac's heart monitor beeps, a slight uptick in a once easy rhythm, and Charlie sits up immediately, eyes fixated in where Mac's head is turning, a soft moan.

Eyelashes flutter, and Charlie can barely see the electric blue of his best friends eyes, the whites of his eyes.

"-'Lie?" A barely there groan, the slow tightening of weak fingers around his. Charlie feels his heart finally slowing from the constant panic he's had in his gut.

"Hey, Mackie," Charlie murmurs, and if he presses a delicate kiss to the knuckles of Mac's hand, we'll, no one's around to notice. "Knew you'd come back to me."

Mac's tired smile is an almost divine thing.


	6. Mac + Murdoc + Possession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That in trying to climb into Murdoc’s head, Murdoc had so easily climbed into his.  
>   
> DAY 6 INSOMNIA

The decking is dimly lit by the small torchlights Mac had put in the other week in another insomnia fuelled night. It leaves disturbing shadows on the wood floors and doors, has Mac tip toeing around to sit gingerly on one of the wooden chairs, like he's just waiting for someone to slip out of the shadows, leather gloves and dark, dark eyes. 

He doesn't know if he means Murdoc or himself. Finds that even a week later now that its hard to shake off the ghost that clings to his shoulders, that has curled around his ribcage and refuses to part. Mac has never been good with emotions, he'll admit that freely without a hint of embarrassment, but he's good with compartmentalisation. 

But even that, in the wake of stepping, not just a single foot, but lying down his body in the grave of Murdoc, of picking up not just Murdocs coat but his _personality_ , his _mannerisms_ , the things that make Murdoc _tick_ , Macs usual copying mechanisms seem to be buried at the wayside. It leaves him desperately unstable, unanchored, and feeling more than a little nmoored. Mac desperately wants to reach out, to reach for the lifeline he can barely see through the exhausted darkness sinking into Murdoc's head had exuded, but all he ever seems to do is reach for the side of himself that knows just how well he did, just how easy it would have been to slip into that chameleon like skin and _stay_ there, safe in the darkness of his twisted morals and untouched nightmares.

Mac had moulded himself for years now, becoming someone his father wanted even if it didn't work out, someone his grandfather wanted, despite Harry's statements of just wanting to know his grandson. Even with Bozer, at the start it wasn't like that, but when he left the army, joined DXS, Mac had slowly twisted himself, like a rubber band twists right before it snaps,had tried so hard to be the Mac Bozer had known, leaving very little growth for the man Mac had really become after leaving the army, after being a clandestine operative. 

He'd carried on doing it, even with Jack, with Nikki, with Thornton, even with Riley and Matty. Each give a piece of Mac, as if hoarding the facets of who Mac could truly be, each holding the final pieces of the jigsaw that not even Mac had ever go finished.

Murdoc holds a piece now, of that jigsaw puzzle. Mac thinks he perhaps holds the biggest piece of them all; the darkest piece perhaps too, and its a terrifying thought. That in trying to climb into Murdoc’s head, Murdoc had so easily climbed into _his_.

Maybe that's why he's here, on the decking, shivering in the late Los Angeles air, having to gaze down at his hands to make sure he doesn't have gloves on, that he doesn't have a gun, or electrical wire, another sleepless night after sleepless night after sleepless night. Jack has been asked about the bags under his eyes, about the pallor of his skin but Mac can't bring himself to talk to Jack about it, so scared of Jack so easily dismissing him, or even worse, _agreeing_ with him.

It was that that had woken him up from thr single hour of restless sleep he'd managed to gather. A delicately whistled verse of Home On The Range, leather gloved hands, electrical cable around his own throat as he pulls jt tight suffocating, burning, a brand around his throat and then- and then _Jack_.

Disappointed, enraged Jack, gun in unshaking, far too steady hands, a snarl on his face, the name on his lips the wrong one, too many syllables and not enough fond inflection. Had been torn with terror that Jack had been calling him 'Murdoc' when instead he'd been saying 'MacGyver', something Jack had never called him since they had become friends downrange.

He looks down at his hands, blinks when he sees they're pale, pale and bare, shaking and scarred, and that's the joke isn't it? That's the damn joke because Mac's suddenly realised the monster he can become and is suddenly scared of people realising and he didn't even know.

He's always been afraid of not being enough, of not being able to live up to expectations, and Jack and Bozer always used to curse, used to yell about what a piece of shit father he had but maybe its just because Mac isn't any good, he isn't worth it, because deep down, in his heart and his mind, Mac had known, had had a sort of inkling of what he was truly like.

His head lists to the side, and he shakes his head, like a dog with water in it's ear, biting down in his lip as grey ghosts past his heavy eyelids.

For a moment, he has to tear himself away from thoughts of his hands around throat, prison orange in his peripheral, a delighted laughter in his ears-

Those are his hands but they are still alien, out of body experience, prayer hands laid flat around the altar of a God that Mac never asked to be able to worship. The last parting shot of a man who had seen exactly what Mac had seen but nobody else had, not really, though Jack had tried.

"I'll be seeing you soon, Angus," Murdoc had said, had known, as if this was a game, as if he had so easily dissected all the ways Mac’s brain hates itself for on a daily basis. "This isn't over yet, boy scout."

Blinking bleary eyes into the unlit firepit, Mac truly doesn't know if it's insomnia or his own brain that keeps himself. That's okay though, at least in his waking moments he has some modicum of control, even if it is the gun in his bedside cabinet.


	7. Mac + Downrange + Gunpoint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The barrel of a gun glints in the too bright sun, blinds him, and his heart roars into his throat.
> 
> DAY 7 ALT GUNPOINT

This isn’t the first time Mac has had a gun shoved in his face. 

Being an EOD tech with a less than stellar overwatch who apparently didn’t know the barrel of his sniper from the butt of his pistol, Mac has become used to keeping constant watch even when bent over a bomb, and despite it being a less than stellar environment, Mac does what he can, ducks low, keeps all elbows and knees to avoid the roller coaster of the pretty pink mist. 

It never gets any less scary though.

Mattias gives an exaggerated yawn over their radio, static crackling loudly from the rush of air. Mac scowls down at the small saucepan bomb he’s midway through disarming, wiggling the small blade beneath the duct tape, feeling the drip of sweat making it’s way through his bandanna underneath his ACH. It’s been a long few hours, an even longer day; back to back double digit work days pulled from sun up to far past sundown, and Mac is getting _tired_. He’s hungry and thirsty and just plain fed up with having to make sure that his overwatch _is_ actually being an overwatch and not just staring into the sunset because he apparently wants his eyes to burn out.

A crunch over the radio.

“You almost done, man? Gettin’ damn itchy over here.” Mattias even sounds itchy, and Mac rolls his shoulders back, sighing pleasantly at the crack of his back and the pull of his muscles. 

“Just about to disarm it....” Mac mutters, tucks his chin in, bends a little further down as he delicately moves a black and red wire out of the way connected to a rudimentary cellphone motherboard. Slipping his free hand in, he hooks his little finger underneath a white wire, carefully keeping it pinned back even as he uses his Swiss Army Knife wire cutters to aim at where the detonation controller is, sighing in relief as the quiet beeping finally ceases. Mac tips his head back, rolling it on his shoulders to stretch his neck, sitting back on his haunches.“All done, Mattias, no problems?”

Radio static. 

“Mattias, do you copy?” Mac frowns, panic starting to thrum through his veins. Tries again, only to get static. He hadn’t heard a gun go off, but he might have just been too deep inside his own head, too concentrated on the bomb. ” _Mattias!”_

A screech of static, and Mac flinches, ears ringing in the aftermath, and he goes to get up, to try and find what’s going on, but a heavy hand lands on his shoulder, hauls him back, leaves him lying on the sand dusted ground, helmet askew.

He blinks back the sun, and shivers, suddenly-

The barrel of a gun glints in the too bright sun, blinds him, and his heart roars into his throat.

This isn’t the first time Mac has had a gun shoved in his face.

It never gets any less scary though.


	8. Mac + Jack + Blood + Grief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack can’t do it. He can’t. He can’t sit by any longer and watch this madman torture his kid to death, to watch the blood drip out of his body as surely as the life leaves his eyes.
> 
> DAY 8 "HEY, HEY, THIS IS NO TIME TO SLEEP."
> 
> Connected to DAY 2 "I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE."

“Hey, hey, hoss, c’mon,” Jack jostles his shoulder, hears how the collar and the cuffs rattle against the metal pipe, wishes with all his might he could let Mac sleep for a touch while longer, but through the gap in the wet room floor, he can tell the sun is rising, and Murdoc will be here soon, usually at eight am. The man’s got a thing for routine. “Don’t you be stubborn with me, kiddo, up and at ‘em, atom man.”

Mac doesn’t stir, still curled up between Jack’s legs, resting his battered face on Jack’s chest and abdomen. Jack wishes he could stop this, that he could take Mac’s place, that they’d been more vigil at Jill’s funeral or _something_ , but honestly Jack would have happily let the bastard go free if it meant that Mac would have been spared _this_. The casual brutality that Murdoc wields so easily, like it’s an extension of his fist, of his body. 

Watching the Doc as he tortures Mac, as he tries to make Mac beg and scream, as he tries to _break_ Mac, Jack knows they’re not getting out of here. Mac isn’t, not in the state he’s in. Jack doesn’t know how long they’ve been here, but it’s long enough that Mac is skin and bone, skin stretched so tightly over his bones that it’s painful to look at, and that just makes it so much easier to see the distortion of his bones, the splinter of his clavicle, how Murdoc’s claimed a piece of Mac’s body in the way that his hand prints form bruises across the valley of Mac’s ribs, the sunken grave of his sternum.

Mac isn’t going to survive much longer, and Jack will have to do this, will have to sit here, cradling the dead body of his own kid because Murdoc wants to break Mac even in death and Jack-

Jack can’t do it. He can’t. He can’t sit by any longer and watch this madman torture his kid to death, to watch the blood drip out of his body as surely as the life leaves his eyes, but Jack can’t do _shit_. He’s useless, _dead weight_ , he should have killed Murdoc when he had the chance, should have fought harder when Murdoc had put that gun to Mac’s head and threatened to shoot him to get Jack to comply. Jack should have done _more_ , because now- 

Now, Jack is going to have to watch his kid die, is going to have to slowly starve himself to dead or be killed by Murdoc not long after Mac, because a world without Mac isn’t feasible. Jack’s been looking after his blonde kid for the longest of time, and he’ll be damned if he breaks the oath of “ _you go kaboon, I go kaboom_.”

The only good thing to have come out of them both being captured is that Mac won’t be alone when he dies, that Jack can tell him that he loves him, and that he’d follow soon after. That Mac ain’t going anywhere Jack can’t follow, not anymore.

“Hey, wakey wakey, brother,” He tries again, jostles his knee this time, careful to avoid the broken ribs on Mac’s right side/ Lately, Mac’s been sleeping harder and deeper, difficult to rouse even when Murdoc starts to get a little torture happy. It’s concerning, especially when he can see how much weight Mac has lost, how he’s so weak. Jack keeps his eyes carefully away from the streak of blood Mac had left in his wake in his desperate attempt to get to Jack. “Gimme a sign that you’re still with me, kiddo, c’mon, don’t you do this to me, not now, not ever.”

A slow wheeze is his only response, and thought it’s got the tell tale sign of pneumonia settling in, from when Murdoc had _experimented_ with waterboarding, it’s a sign that Mac is still with him, still _breathing_ , and honestly Jack will take any win he can right now. Another wheeze, harsher, louder, and Mac gives a low moan, pained and sickly. A hand slowly curls on Jack’s stomach, the three broken and dislocated fingers bruised and gnarly even as Mac flinches.

Another wheeze, before Mac is slowly settling again, and for all that Jack wishes he could let the kid sleep in, wishes they were back home, or even back in Texas, waking up early on his Momma’s ranch because one of the horses had taken a liking to Mac and always knew when he was at the ranch and she’d never eat anything of a morning unless it was from Mac’s own damn hand. It’s a wish though, a pipe dream that Jack is terrified that he’ll never get to see again.

“ _Angus!”_ He barks, as loud as he dares, he doesn’t know what Murdoc likes to do in the mornings, their lives have been condensed into this somewhat large wet room, the only glimpse they get of the outside world is when Murdoc opens the single door that would lead to freedom only if Jack could get free. Mac doesn’t move.

Jack sighs, shifts his numb backside. Mac needs to move, needs to get back to the other side of the room, because Murdoc hates it when he comes back to the room and Mac is still with Jack, even though he _has_ to know what’s gone on by the blood that stains Jack and the smearing on the floor. Murdoc takes far too much pleasure in grabbing Mac by the hair and _dragging_ him back, regardless of any hurt he inflicts.

Jack doesn’t think he can do that again, not now, not today. Not when he’s been too scared to fall asleep because he’s terrified that Mac will slip away during the night.

“Mac, _please_ -, c’mon, hey, hey, this ain’t no time to sleep, kiddo, _please_.” Jack keeps his voice soft, pleading, feels the way Mac flinches even in his sleep, the way his skin is slowly burning up with fever. God, no wonder he’s so deep asleep, some wound is probably infected, let alone the pneumonia. They need to get out of here.

The door swings open, Mac shivering in the morning breeze. The blissful sunlight is obscured by a figure. Jack can’t help his own flinch, presses a dry kiss to Mac’s trembling head.

“God, kid, I’m so fucking sorry.” He doesn’t care much for the tears on his own cheeks, only wishes he could slip these cuffs and hold Mac just one more time. 


	9. Mac + Jack + Buried Alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another thud, he thinks he hears yelling, the faintest sound that he doesn’t know how it travels to him. Only wishes that he could yell, that he could scream, shout, tell them that he’s down here, please-
> 
> DAY 9 BURIED ALIVE

He barely remembers anything he wakes up.

Only that he'd grabbed a cup of coffee because he'd been early after not being able to sleep and then...

And then nothing. Not even a blip, he doesn't remember feeling funny, if he stumbled, if he tried to blearily apologies to the person he knocked into, if he knew who had drugged him. Doesn't even remember if he pulled a face, or if the coffee tasted strange. He doesn’t even remember what the coffee _tasted_ like, of if he’d even said _thank you_. 

He groans, or at least, he tries to. With that, it’s as if the world wakes up, as if something has pressed play on an unseen remote and Mac was suspended in limbo. He wishes he still was when he opens his eyes, and he see’s nothing but darkness. 

It’s hard to concentrate, things keep trying to come to the forefront of his mind but when he tries to grasp for it, they dance just out of reach, teasing. He shake his head, chokes softly on something that’s-

On something that’s _inside_ of him. His heart rackets up, loud in his ears and in the silence, wonders if it was any louder if he’d be able to hear it. He can’t move his jaw either, can’t clench his teeth down on whatever it is that is snaking down into his mouth, down his throat, he wonders where it ends, thinks maybe mid chest for the heavy weight he thinks he can feel. He’s grateful when he goes to raise his hands and finds he can, but he’s only able to raise them to the middle of his chest, something leather and now body warm wrapped around his wrists. He can’t even try and pull what’s inside him out. He tries to kick out too, mind somewhat blurry still, but even that doesn’t help. He’s well and truly stuck, in the darkness that suddenly seems heavy, pressing in on him from all sides. He wishes Jack was here.

A loud thud, and something shakes down onto him, and he flinches. He can’t even wipe his face, can’t even _move_ his head to tip it off him. He closes his eyes, or thinks he does, there’s no difference in the darkness that he finds himself in. Another thud, he thinks he hears yelling, the faintest sound that he doesn’t know how it travels to him. Only wishes that he could yell, that he could scream, shout, tell them that he’s down here, _please-_

Noises, loud and uncomprehending, and though Mac can’t hear them properly, not through the too loud heartbeat in his ears, the panic he can feel only vaguely, as if the drug is still in his system. God, he doesn’t even know how _long_ he’s been down here, how much time he’s lost.

“ _-ac! Mac!”_ He can hear them now, thinks it’s Jack, and he sounds just as desperate as the heart beat in Mac’s ears. He tries to pull, tries to get his hands up, to pound on the ceiling of whatever he’s been kept prisoner in, but he can’t, he _can’t_. His life is in the hands of people he doesn’t know, doesn’t know if he can _trust_ and it has his mind slowly slipping away, panic still trying to set in.

Something _breaks_ , cracks, and whatever it was, _dirt_ he thinks, he can smell it, the earth, cloying and musky, drops down onto his face again, brings tears to his eyes. He tries to scream, feels the way his chest vibrates with the effort, how he tries to kick his legs but he can’t, he _can’t, please, Jack-_

“ _Mac_ , please kiddo, c’mon!” Daylight. Sweet sweet daylight, burning into his eyes but Mac still stares upwards, desperate for even a glimpse of the sky. “ _C’mon, man, answer me!”_ For one heart stopping moment, Mac thinks the sky has vanished, wiped out by an unseen hand, smeared against a backdrop of nothing but darkness. Then, _then_ -

Jacks face, dirtied and grimy, teeth white against the dark of it, appears, stricken. His eyes are wide, but grow wider still.

“ _MEDIC!”_ Is called, with that distinct panic that Mac remembers, from every time Mac has been injured, bleeding out beneath his partners hands, every time he almost hadn’t made it, and wakes up to Jack sitting at his bedside. “ _MEDIC!”_

Just as panicked, just as terrified, and Jack jumps down, doesn’t have to even _think_ , and Mac doesn’t have time to wonder where the rest of the dirt went when he was staring up at Jack’s face, but Jack is kneeling as best he can at Mac’s side, straddling his thigh a little.

“Hey, Mackie, don’t you worry, kiddo, we’re gonna get you outta here, yeah?” Jack rambles, even more when he’s nervous, and he only calls Mac _Mackie_ when he’s _exceptionally_ nervous and panicky. Even knowing that it’s futile, he tries to sit up, tries to just _move_. “Hey, hey, I wouldn’t be doin’ that, hoss, we need to get a medic to came take out- to take out the ET tube, huh? Can’t do it myself, okay, you’re gonna be fine, kiddo-”

The- The _ET Tube? The Endotracheal tube used to help people that couldn’t breathe for themselves?_ An ET is what is stuck down his throat?

“ _Don’t panic!”_ Jack pleads, and suddenly he’s right there, angled awkwardly, almost forehead to forehead, and Mac stares up at him, can’t help the way he can feel the way a tear slowly drips down his temples, jaw aching. He just wants to _leave_. “Keep breathin’ for me, don’t worry, it’s not connected to anything, you’re not bein’ forced to breathe, just go at your own usual place, huh, and we’ll get your skinny ass free, just gotta get a medic to see if we can do it safely here or at the hospital, yeah? We’re gonna get these cuffs off, don’t you worry, Jackie’s here for his boy, right? Ain’t never steered you wrong have I?”

 _No_ , Mac blinks up slowly, and Jack’s face breaks into a wide grin, even if his eyes are still panic stricken, something terrified lurking in them. Leaning forward, two big hands steadying his head, warm and heavy, a source of comfort in the darkness that still tries to press down on him. A calloused thumb brushes beneath his eye, where tears are pooling.

“You’ve got this, kid,” Jack whispers. “So fuckin’ strong, you’re gonna be just fine.”


	10. Mac + Jack + Scars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mac scrubs a rough hand over his suddenly drawn, tired face, and though his ruffled, still damp at the ends hair makes Jack think of a sixteen year old, his haunted eyes, twisted mouth and guarded behavior has Jack thinkin’ of his daddy, with his PTSD and the way he’d wake, screaming in the night, begging for someone to come back, to not let go, thinks of the scars he’d saw on his daddy, who he’d always saw as the strongest person he’d ever meet.
> 
> DAY 10 "IM SORRY, I DIDN'T KNOW."
> 
> CONNECTED TO DAY 7 GUNPOINT

It was honestly a mistake.

Jack hadn’t _meant_ to, not really. He’d walked in without thinking, without _knocking,_ something that he and Mac had done numerous times, especially downrange when they and the others bunking with them had had to share shower cubicles that were about the size of a stunted peanut shell and he'd never seen them. Mac had never _seemed_ to have an issue with it, he’d stripped off more than enough times in full view of the guys, even with all of his squirrelly little issues that Jack still hasn’t fully realized. But now that Jack thinks about it, Mac only ever changed with his back to the wall, to a corner, keeping watch.

Mac, Jack has come to learn but never quite says out loud, is a lot like the bombs he disarms, though not _exactly._ More that he implodes yes, but that it’s only ever _inwards,_ never with the intention of hurting anyone _but_ himself.

Kid’s got a dozen hundred landmines buried in that big brain of his that Jack doesn’t know where they are or where they’ve even _come_ from, and this seems to have been a particular landmine that has uprooted everything for several mental miles.

Like he said, he hadn’t _meant_ to walk in on Mac when he was getting changed, having just finished belting up his chinos and just about to pull a henley over his hair, damp at the ends, back to the door. His _back_ , which Jack is only just realizing, which looks like someone’s taken a damn _whip_ to it-

“Who the _fuck_ did that to you?” It comes out quiet, through gritted teeth. Jack can _taste_ the rage he’s trying to keep down, swallowing it alongside with the bile he can feel rising, because he doesn’t want Mac to feel like Jack’s angry at _him_ , because damn knows the fool kid has done that often enough. “Tell me, Mac, tell me right fuckin’ now because I’m gonna kill ‘em, I’m gonna hunt them down and I’m gonna rip their _fuckin’ lungs out_ -”

Mac yelps, and even as he twists around, he tries to pull his henley over his head, only succeeding in getting tangled up, staggering to the side. Jack lunges forward, gets a hand on Mac’s bare side, right up against his ribs, far enough around that he can feel, not only cool skin, but the raised raggedness of ill healed scars. Mac _flinches,_ and something drops, cold and awful, in the pit of Jack’s belly.

Mac _flinches._ He flinches away, yanking his side from Jack’s suddenly loose grip, succeeding in pulling his white henley over his head, and down his torso, head popping through and making him look all of sixteen all over again, despite the fact that Jack knows that the kid’s coming up to twenty three in a few months.

Jack’s hands ball into fists, he can still feel the anger being fanned in his belly, and the only thing he can think of is-

“Did your daddy do that to you?” He demands roughly, thinks of Riley, and Diane, fucking _Elwood._ Doesn’t think he could take it if he ended up with another great kid under his care that had suffered through the whims of a shitty father. Jack was blessed with the greatest father on the fuckin’ planet, and he thinks this is karma, this is the reason _why_ , that all that love he had as a kid was so he could give that love in turn to these damn fool kids that have suffered so much. “Shoulda known that man was a piece of shit as soon as you started talkin’ about him, leavin’ when you was ten, sonuvabitch don’t deserve you kiddo, and if I ever see him, I’m gonna punch that man so damn hard he’s gonna bein’ seein’ stars, he don’t deserve a great kid like you, Mac-”

Jack only stops because Mac’s face is doing.... _something._ Like he’s about to cry, and that’s a whole another boat load of issues that Jack thinks would keep the Army - and now DXS, he supposes - psychologists in the job for a couple of years, because the kid just doesn’t cry. Jack ain’t seen Mac shed a single tear in all the time Jack’s known him, not even when Jack had to yank almost three inches of shrapnel outta his left calf. The joke around base camp was that Mac had gone into EOD and that he didn’t need a bomb robot because he _was_ the bomb robot. 

So yeah, doing something weird like he’s about to cry, but his mouth is smiling, bottom lip kinda wavering like you’re trying to hold back your tears but are just at the point of breaking, and suddenly that just _breaks_ Jack. Has the anger draining outta him so fast he’s almost light headed with it, and he makes a conscious effort to relax his hands, reaches out, enough that if Mac wants to touch him he can, but that he doesn’t need to. 

Kid’s been funny with touch since Jack first met him. For someone with a distinct lack of boundaries with borrowing people’s shit and using it to either disarm something or blow it up, Mac doesn’t so much as have personal boundaries as twenty foot concrete walls mixed with trust and abandonment issues manned by round the clock snipers and Apache's. 

“Hey,” Jack says, and he finds he’s using the voice he pulls out when dealing with the roughest and wildest of the horses back home, and maybe it’s fitting that Mac responds to it, softens his shoulders. “It’s okay, kiddo, I ain’t gonna do anything you don’t want me too, huh? Wanna tell ol’ Jackie that’s fine, but you don’t gotta, we’re cool here.”

Mac laughs, and it’s watery, a little damp around the edges. Still looking more like a college student than a well decorated war vet and now government super secret spy agent, he rubs his eyes with the heels of his palms, something that had been hard and cold having been cracked open. Maybe because Jack is _looking_ for it now, and is _noticing,_ he sees how a long thin mark trails over Mac’s shoulder where the henley has fallen, how it wraps briefly up towards Mac’s neck and fading off.

“It’s-” Mac scrubs a rough hand over his suddenly drawn, tired face, and though his ruffled, still damp at the ends hair makes Jack think of a sixteen year old, his haunted eyes, twisted mouth and guarded behavior has Jack thinkin’ of his daddy, with his PTSD and the way he’d wake, screaming in the night, begging for someone to come back, to not let go, thinks of the scars he’d saw on his daddy, who he’d always saw as the strongest person he’d ever meet.

Thinks, briefly, that it’s a damn shame his pop ain’t around to meet Mac, thinks they would’ve got on like a house on fire. Thinks he’s gonna have to listen to his momma’s nagging about coming down more often now he’s back stateside, and leave Mac to her tender mercies.

“We can forget I saw anythin’,” Jack offers quietly, has to stop himself from slinging an arm around Mac and bringing him in for a hug, suddenly glad that Bozer was at work. He and Mac had been back stateside for going on two weeks now, and Bozer had only been able to beg a day or two off. “You don’t have to say anythin’ you don’t wanna, you know me, kiddo, ain’t nosy about anything.”

“Jack, you’re the nosiest man I’ve ever met,” Mac laughs, and Jack grins, relieved that it comes out stronger than it had before. “Nah, I - I haven’t talked about it, before, actually. Maybe....maybe it’ll help.”

“How ‘bout this then,” Jack says, and he’s sidled up close enough and Mac seems stable enough that Jack risks touching his shoulder, and when Mac seems to _lean_ into it, wraps it around his shoulders fully, bringing the kid in for a sideways hug, loose enough he can escape easily. Mac seems to realize it, and turns his head into Jack’s shoulder, those eyes clenched shut. “We grab some beers, or some soda, and the left over pizza and we can talk out on the deck or something, yeah?”

He can feel Mac nodding against his shoulder, thinks if this kid doesn’t stop getting hurt like this, he’s gonna have to fight the whole fucking world, and Jack just doesn’t think he has big enough fists to do so.

It’s an easy enough move to do so, and though Mac seems reluctant to let go, he does so. In no time at all, they’re sat around the unlit firepit, chilled coke cola glass bottles in hand, left over pizza between the two of them. They’re close enough that if Mac wants to, he can reach out and tap his knee against Jacks.

“Just...lemme get this out, yeah?” Mac says quietly, looking down. He’s fiddling with the wrapping on the glass bottle, tearing it slowly to shreds. Without even thinking, Jack reaches into his jean pockets and spills a handful of paperclips out between them. Mac takes one with a grateful look. “I don’t think I’m gonna be able to get through this if I have to keep stopping and starting.”

With a comical look on his face, Jack mimes zipping his mouth and throwing away the key, heart fit to burst when it makes Mac laugh. Sure it’s a little thready, as if he’s forced it out, or hadn’t expected to laugh, but Jack will take what he can get right now.

It takes a while for Mac to start talking, looking down at his paperclip, having warmed it up in hands with how he kept twisting and pulling at it. Kid had almost dislocated his damn fingers before Jack had near enough shoved the entire box of paperclips he’d raided after Mac had used his last one to disarm a bomb, and so now Jack always makes sure to keep some extra. Damn kids and their anxiety disorders from shitty fathers. 

“Remember...remember how I told you that I’d had some problems with one of my overwatches?” Jack nods, doing his best to keep his mouth shut like Mac had asked him too. Mac _had_ alluded to having a few problems with a few of his overwatches, he’d never named names, but Charlie had, after chewing Jack out as if he had the skills to match after hering how Jack had gone after Mac when they’d first gotten paired up, been keen enough to let Jack know that if he so much as took his _eyes_ off of Mac, he’d be kicked back stateside so fast his head would spin. Not many men walk away after threatening Jack Dalton, and Charlie Robinson had been one of them. “Turns out he’d left his nest to take a leak, left me there with the bomb, couldn't be bothered I guess, and I- i ended up being ambushed by a group of insurgents-”

Jack can see it happening so clearly as Mac narrates, with a distant, almost vague voice. Bending over a freshly disarmed IED, how the insurgents would have surrounded him, held him at gunpoint - wonders, in that same distant voice Mac is using, if that’s why Mac doesn’t like guns - would have forced him to his knees, blind folded him, knocked him out for good measure.

“Thought they were gonna kill me, honestly,” Mac carries on, as if he can’t see tha this is slowly earring Jack apart. But this isn’t about Jack, about how he wants to hunt down every overwatch Mac has ever had and beat them to a pulp. The only good thing to come out of this is that Jack met Mac, had took his stupid bomb nerd under his wing and then never let him outta his sight. “But, EOD I guess, think they heard the chatter about _some sort of_ _bomb wunderkind_ -” There’s a certain type of irony, Jack thinks, about having your own words thrown back into your face, and knowing that when he’d said it, Mac had probably thought of _this_ , of being captured. “They...They wanted me to build them bombs, or try to sort out the mistakes they’d been making with the recent ones, some of ‘em turned out to be duds, some just didn’t have the explosive radius they wanted, I guess, but-”

Mac’s voice is still quiet and even, but with a forced edge to it, as if he’s forcing himself to get through it without breaking down. He’s still staring resolutely down at the paperclip that he’s near enough mangled. Jack wants to put his hand over Mac’s, but the kid looks like he’s about to vibrate outta his damn skin, and Jack has seen this enough in Mac to know skin to skin contact wouldn’t be appreciated right now. Instead, making sure that his socks cover his ankles, Jack slips a foot out of his boot, presses their toes together. Mac’s toes wiggle in response, pale and vulnerable against the dark wood of the deck. Something loosens in the terse set of his shoulders, enough that Jack finds his own melting too.

“I-I was there for three days, god, three days, it felt so fuckin’ long, Jack. They...they waterboarded me at first when I wouldn’t do what they asked, but when they...when they ended up having to resuscitate me, I guess they thought that was too much of a hassle - “ Here, something in Mac’s voice _breaks_ , fragile and demanding, and Jack listens with a quietly breaking heart as his kid breaks right down the middle. “Guess they thought they couldn’t risk it, and they- they tied me to this pole, right in the middle of the room, and all I can remember thinking is that...is that they were gonna leave me, the army wasn’t gonna send anyone to help me, I was on my own - they whipped me, they just...they kept whipping me, like I was just a piece of meat, and when I didn’t give in, when I kept saying no, no I wouldn’t build their bombs, or teach their men, they just-”

Mac _folds_ in half, gasping, almost sobbing, he’s dropped his mangled paperclip. Nothing but a tangled piece of metal that Jack gives no mind to, not when Mac is slowly breaking right in front of him, gasping like he’s been underwater for so long and this is the first breath of air he’s taken for _years._ Who knows, maybe it is.

“I’m so, so _sorry_ kid,” Jack says quietly, slips to the floor, hearing how his knees creak. He curls a hesitant hand over the shaking of Mac’s shoulders, feels the force of his cries in how tense his shoulders, his back is, feels like the kid could snap right in half. Mac _leans_ into the touch, and when Jack tightens his grip, that seems to be the end of Mac’s defences, when he so cleanly _shatters_ . “I’m so fuckin’ sorry, kid, I didn’t _know_.”

A hand tangles in the acid wash fabric of his Iron Maiden shirt, bony knuckles digging into his chest, and a tear damp face is forced into his shoulder, hair in his mouth, his nose, but Jack doesn’t say anything, not when he’s half crouched, half stooped with one of the most important people in his life in his arms. A slow arm wraps itself around Mac’s back, he doesn’t avoid the scars, doesn’t want Mac to think that he’s disgusted by him, because he knows how Mac’s brain works with stuff like this.

“I was so scared, Jack,” Mac’s voice is muffled, shaking with tears. Slowly, oh so slowly, Mac’s other arm comes up to wrap around Jack’s back, clinging to the back of his shirt with all his strength. “I just wanted to go _home_ but they wouldn’t let me, and then Charlie got promoted, even though he didn’t want to after everything, and then _Al-!”_

“Hey, hey, breathe with me, man,” Jack says, feels the uneven and jagged rise of Mac’s shoulders. He’s about to panic himself right into hyperventilating if Jack doesn’t get him to calm down. “C’mon Mac, I know that big brain knows how to breathe properly, hear my heartbeat? Focus on that, kiddo, get those breathes under control, startin’ to sound like my horse when we used to gallop up the rivers and my momma used to yell at us something fierce. Didn’t know what she was on about, Chewie _loved_ it-”

It’s an easy thing, to keep rambling, sweeping a steady hand up and down Mac’s back in broad, firm strokes, enough that it keeps Mac grounded but not enough to make him think he’s trapped. Eventually, Mac ends up resting limply against him, exhausted with his panic and tears. Jack doesn’t mind, even as he pulls Mac up enough that he’s not going to have a crick in his neck when he wakes up, tucked under Jack’s arm as Jack gets comfortable.

Later, Jack will think everything over, from Mac’s shitty overwatch, to what happened when he was captured, when he was a damn fucking _prisoner of war,_ Christ, Jack thinks he’s added a few dozen new names to his “People He’s Got To Murder For Mac”. He’ll then think about how Mac said they wouldn’t let him go home, will choke down his anger and disgust and wonder if there’s something more sinister at play, will call himself paranoid because of course not, Mac was acomplete unknown when he first made himself known in the army s the greatest EOD tech after his mentor, why would anyone want to mess with Mac.

(Years down the line, Jack kicks himself and tells himself to never ignore his instincts again.)

For now though, Jack keeps watch over his kid, ready to soothe the inevitable nightmares that are going to make an appearance, wonders if his daddy is watching from up top as Jack picks a kid up from something no one should have gone through.

He still thinks his pop and his kid would’ve got on like a house on fire. He’ll have to drag Mac to say hello him one of these days.

“You’re gonna be okay, Mac,” Jack says quietly, and if he presses a dry kiss to the crown of Mac’s head, he doesn’t think Mac will mind. “You’re gonna be just fine.”


	11. Mac + RIley + Missing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the first time since Jack first moved in, his apartment is empty, and it’s an awful, hollowing feeling.
> 
> DAY 18 ALT "PLEASE COME BACK"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is so convoluted, i've just wrote day 18 and im going to try and bang out the ones between day 10 and day 18 oh man

For the first time since Jack first moved in, his apartment is empty, and it’s an awful, hollowing feeling.

Mac can’t help the sigh he gives, pushing back until he’s sat on his haunches, feeling the bite of the hardwood floor through his chinos. The last pile of boxes surround him, ready to be heaved down into Mac’s truck that’s been parked into what was once Jack’s garage space. He sighs again, feeling the burn of left over tears across the back of his eyes, the way his throat is sore. HIs shoulders have never felt heavier, and honestly he thinks only half of that is because of the thick sweater he’s wearing.

Thick and scarlet, pearl knit, it was Jack’s dad’s, and he always wore it whenever he wanted to feel close to Senior, when the world seemed too big and Jack seemed too small. Jack had always said that when it got like that, all he needed was his kids and his pops, and then all was right with the world. Maybe Mac’s hoping that’s what will happen with him, will make everything right again, will bring Jack back to him.

He’s probably being dramatic, it’s not like Jack is  _ dead _ , like they’ve been handed a flag in lieu of Jack returning, but it’s been over a year. Over a year since Jack left, to hunt down a man that he’d thought he’d already killed, and Mac feels almost like he’s being pulled at the seams, like he’s one misstep away from crumbling like an ill built house of cards. He just….he just feels so adrift, and Riley is helping, she’s been an immense help and Mac doesn’t quite know how he’d ever be able to repay her, but…. it’s not the same.

The door to Jack’s apartment swings open,but Mac isn’t alarmed, not when he recognises Riley’s footsteps, and how she immediately sinks to her knees beside him, smiling sadly. They’ve been needing to do this for a couple of weeks, since Jack’s lease is up in a few days and they’ve decided that instead of putting Jack’s stuff in storage, Mac’s going to free up some space and keep it at the house. Putting his stuff in storage just seems…. so  _ final _ .

“Thought I’d find you here,” Riley says, and she leans over to knock her shoulder against his, hard enough that Mac sways away and then back into her, like a pendulum. She’s wearing one of Jack’s Iron Maiden shirts, too big and baggy on her. Mac can’t really say anything. They both divvied up Jack’s favourite shirts and jumpers, and sometimes rotate them depending on how shitty the day is. It’s a good system. “Just goin’ through the last of it?”

Mac smiles at her, brushes his shoulder against hers again, feels the heat of her through the thick sweater. Riley looks as if she’s about to shatter herself.

“It’s just making me miss him more,” He confides, and she tucks her hand into his, rubbing her thumb against the web between his. On her thumb, Jack’s beowulf ring twists around, bites shallowly against Mac’s hand. ‘I knew it was gonna be hard but….”

Riley sighs, and she squeezes his hand once, twice, before she gets her legs out from under her, leaning against the heavy boxes and stretching her legs out in front of her. Mac follows suit slowly, pulling the cuffs of his sweater until he’s stretched them over his fingers, picking at the loose skin around his fingernails.

“He’ll be back soon,” Mac says, and if it sounds like a wish, Riley isn’t going to begrudge him, especially since she’s done the same thing over and over. ‘He’ll come back.”

“Still up for pizza and skeball after this?” Riley asks, and she’s got a sad smile tucked into the shadow of her mouth. “Maybe if we get Jacks least favourite pizza he’ll come back all irritated just to yell at us.”

Mac snorts out half hearted laughter. “Man had no taste, ham and pineapple pizza is delicious.”

“Say that often enough and he’ll come back to kick your ass.” Riley cackles.


End file.
